Last Poems

Edward Thomas

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Last Poems, by Edward ThomasThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.orgTitle: Last PoemsAuthor: Edward ThomasRelease Date: September 23, 2007 [EBook #22732]Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST POEMS ***Produced by Lewis JonesEdward Thomas (1918) Last PoemsLAST POEMSByEDWARD THOMASLONDON: SELWYN & BLOUNT, 12, YORK BUILDINGS, ADELPHI, W.C. 2. 1918.CONTENTSI never saw that Land beforeThe Dark ForestCelandineThe Ash GroveOld ManThe ThrushI built myself a House of GlassFebruary AfternoonDiggingTwo HousesThe Mill-waterA DreamSedge-WarblersUnder the WoodsWhat will they do?To-nightA CatThe UnknownSongShe dotesFor TheseMarch the ThirdThe New HouseMarchThe CuckooOver the HillsHomeThe Hollow WoodWind and MistThe Unknown BirdThe Lofty SkyAfter RainDiggingBut these things alsoAprilThe BarnThe Barn and the DownThe Child on the CliffsGood-nightThe Wasp TrapJulyA TalePartingLoversThat Girl's Clear EyesThe Child in the OrchardThe SourceThe Mountain ChapelFirst known when lostThe WordThese things that Poets saidHomeAspensAn Old SongThere was a TimeAmbitionNo one cares less than IRoadsThis is no case of petty Right or WrongThe Chalk-PitHealthBeautySnowThe ...

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• Publié par: imkie
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 41
• Langue: English

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Produced by Lewis Jones

By

EDWARD THOMAS

Edward Thomas (1918) Last Poems

LAST POEMS

Title: Last Poems Author: Edward Thomas Release Date: September 23, 2007 [EBook #22732] Language: English

LONDON: SELWYN & BLOUNT, 12, YORK BUILDINGS, ADELPHI, W.C. 2. 1918.

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST POEMS ***

oockCue Th chraM esuoH weN ehT

tien rehepxedetcI thin any

I NEVER saw that land before, And now can never see it again; Yet, as if by acquaintance hoar Endeared, by gladness and by pain, Great was the affection that I bore

I NEVER SAW THAT LAND BEFORE

g

To the valley and the river small, The cattle, the grass, the bare ash trees, The chickens from the farmsteads, all Elm-hidden, and the tributaries Descending at equal interval;

The blackthorns down along the brook With wounds yellow as crocuses Where yesterday the labourer's hook Had sliced them cleanly; and the breeze That hinted all and nothing spoke.

ind and  ow Wood W hT eoHll lisl oHem  ter HheOv The  pril lso A gs a a dnaBnrhT e aBnr hi Che n T ow Dhe t sffilC eht no dl Unknown  Mist The  oLtf ykS iBdr hT e n D ai giig ft y A Rer  esenihtuB gn ht t hT e yEse  dnihCli Orc the The  hard hT ecruoS atnuoM epeha Cin  kstir l F oGdon-gith hT eaWsp Trap July A Tal raP e gnit evoL hT sr  Gatl'irCls r ea N noitibmA emiT a as wrehe g T on Sld hTsi aosd  n R It ahlessres e cao on  eseniht oW e hT dr lon  Th stwnnohe w epsn nAO  di oHem sA Poets sags that  he k T ooBr Ho erth O  weN ehT  ehT raeY Man  ypsy Dog A and  na dsu e ehG  aM T n tyetig R ohtWrr  si c on esap fo Health Beauty Snow no T g ehC ahklP-ti in tOut  vate Pri rakehD 

dnuh derecapnu sr dee theetrwas  tuc uaes   a dnd elayed. Scarce a  naht retseteews—besil mhiot nut enI shtla —etvrs eaPaceweetch s  fndr eaem m aorseltiw shtiwser  l, Not ev ng at al riti sfonet ehs llwae thr ve ome

THE DARK FOREST

DARK is the forest and deep, and overhead Hang stars like seeds of light In vain, though not since they were sown was bred Anything more bright. And evermore mighty multitudes ride About, nor enter in; Of the other multitudes that dwell inside Never yet was one seen. The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite Outside is gold and white, Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet The others, day or night.

CELANDINE

THINKING of her had saddened me at first, Until I saw the sun on the celandines lie Redoubled, and she stood up like a flame, A living thing, not what before I nursed, The shadow I was growing to love almost, The phantom, not the creature with bright eye That I had thought never to see, once lost. She found the celandines of February Always before us all. Her nature and name Were like those flowers, and now immediately For a short swift eternity back she came, Beautiful, happy, simply as when she wore Her brightest bloom among the winter hues Of all the world; and I was happy too, Seeing the blossoms and the maiden who Had seen them with me Februarys before, Bending to them as in and out she trod And laughed, with locks sweeping the mossy sod. But this was a dream: the flowers were not true, Until I stooped to pluck from the grass there One of five petals and I smelt the juice Which made me sigh, remembering she was no more, Gone like a never perfectly recalled air.

THE ASH GROVE

b doclimuld n Cose tm lo notnwi  emembereor yet rN thd ; entoI heuc  emolaogb :ds tu d nowoulhat  ing W dls c uofiI na d t en w IAs ulsoy m repsihw neve t t moesohnitprf gad m ho e W ik lmee  hwnes cua snew rrs bid.h whispe  monjoy neurngyi s I , luohsu da ,es the trees and ibdr sid,d  Aalgnot ngeua bbeo  t;deyarte tahw dnA hid wasuld  sho lebtsli xEec h di yew leocem dem ;I was glad witho eht ah yes d    ne ts ial f Bu l: tht  l dehtye aoht  o lonuse,foreg be aed eht m seno d sofe ad f  . I deha ved made yet    li ro ehtnaiLttelm   dodd,eaveroto st es tahdna oht ehg fot LA FH

et'rW niHWNE  rea you Novd in ae,d sha c nahWta Apn  iad n he l W riahT rebme er uoy t

The song of the Ash Grove soft as love uncrossed, And then in a crowd or in distance it were lost, But the moment unveiled something unwilling  to die And I had what most I desired, without search or  desert or cost.

THE THRUSH

OLD MAN

OLD Man, or Lad's-love,—in the name there's  nothing To one that knows not Lad's-love, or Old Man, The hoar-green feathery herb, almost a tree, Growing with rosemary and lavender. Even to one that knows it well, the names Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: At least, what that is clings not to the names In spite of time. And yet I like the names.

The herb itself I like not, but for certain I love it, as some day the child will love it Who plucks a feather from the door-side bush Whenever she goes in or out of the house. Often she waits there, snipping the tips and  shrivelling The shreds at last on to the path, perhaps Thinking, perhaps of nothing, till she sniffs Her fingers and runs off. The bush is still But half as tall as she, though it is as old; So well she clips it. Not a word she says; And I can only wonder how much hereafter She will remember, with that bitter scent, Of garden rows, and ancient damson-trees Topping a hedge, a bent path to a door, A low thick bush beside the door, and me Forbidding her to pick.

 As for myself, Where first I met the bitter scent is lost. I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds, Sniff them and think and sniff again and try Once more to think what it is I am remembering, Always in vain. I cannot like the scent, Yet I would rather give up others more sweet, With no meaning, than this bitter one.

I have mislaid the key. I sniff the spray And think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing; Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait For what I should, yet never can, remember: No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bush Of Lad's-love, or Old Man, no child beside, Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate; Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end.

iWtnres'd ae?d

That I passed through at either end without  noticing. And now an ash grove far from those hills can bring The same tranquillity in which I wander a ghost With a ghostly gladness, as if I heard a girl sing

I must remember What died into April And consider what will be born Of a fair November;

But I know the months all, And their sweet names, April, May and June and October, As you call and call

MEN heard this roar of parleying starlings, saw,  A thousand years ago even as now,  Black rooks with white gulls following the plough So that the first are last until a caw Commands that last are first again,—a law  Which was of old when one, like me, dreamed  how  A thousand years might dust lie on his brow Yet thus would birds do between hedge and shaw.

Time swims before me, making as a day  A thousand years, while the broad ploughland  oak  Roars mill-like and men strike and bear the  stroke  Of war as ever, audacious or resigned, And God still sits aloft in the array  That we have wrought him, stone-deaf and  stone-blind.

FEBRUARY AFTERNOON

I BUILT myself a house of glass: It took me years to make it: And I was proud. But now, alas, Would God someone would break it. But it looks too magnificent. No neighbour casts a stone From where he dwells, in tenement Or palace of glass, alone.

I BUILT MYSELF A HOUSE OF GLASS.

Or is all your lore Not to call November November, And April April, And Winter Winter—no more?

Is it more that you know Than that, even as in April, So in November, Winter is gone that must go?

While you love what is kind, What you can sing in And love and forget in All that's ahead and behind.

And April I love for what It was born of, and November For what it will die in, What they are and what they are not,

op prebae thr ea nigniS ,pit s'ral ly.uousnting co Iaeh ht rht eshruan, I d e H se mia olena  tht eend of the lane N

DGIIGGN ur snggi cndesomehT , uos  ifnietin

WHAT matter makes my spade for tears or mirth, Letting down two clay pipes into the earth? The one I smoked, the other a soldier Of Blenheim, Ramillies, and Malplaquet Perhaps. The dead man's immortality Lies represented lightly with my own, A yard or two nearer the living air Than bones of ancients who, amazed to see Almighty God erect the mastodon, Once laughed, or wept, in this same light of day.

But another house stood there long before: And as if above graves Still the turf heaves Above its stones: Dark hangs the sycamore, Shadowing kennel and bones And the black dog that shakes his chain and moans.

Not far from the road it lies, yet caught Far out of reach Of the road's dust And the dusty thought Of passers-by, though each Stops, and turns, and must Look down at it like a wasp at the muslined peach.

BETWEEN a sunny bank and the sun The farmhouse smiles On the riverside plat: No other one So pleasant to look at And remember, for many miles, So velvet-hushed and cool under the warm tiles.

And when he barks, over the river Flashing fast, Dark echoes reply, And the hollow past Half yields the dead that never More than half hidden lie: And out they creep and back again for ever.

TWO HOUSES

se:

Pretty to see, by day Its sound is naught Compared with thought And talk and noise of labour and of play.

Water that toils no more Dangles white locks And, falling, mocks The music of the mill-wheel's busy roar.

ONLY the sound remains Of the old mill; Gone is the wheel; On the prone roof and walls the nettle reigns.

THE MILL-WATER

t ehs nei  npuno sekam thfid eht igN ilhgomno oo m ,t lG nce.fere alm In c

siW sdrib tier yleg inaterslesdlen

THIS beauty made me dream there was a time Long past and irrecoverable, a clime Where any brook so radiant racing clear Through buttercup and kingcup bright as brass But gentle, nourishing the meadow grass That leans and scurries in the wind, would bear Another beauty, divine and feminine, Child to the sun, a nymph whose soul unstained Could love all day, and never hate or tire, A lover of mortal or immortal kin.

Only the idle foam Of water falling Changelessly calling, Where once men had a work-place and a home.

A DREAM

SEDGE-WARBLERS

y

Sometimes a thought is drowned By it, sometimes Out of it climbs; All thoughts begin or end upon this sound,

Often the silentness Has but this one Companion; Wherever one creeps in the other is:

OVER known fields with an old friend in dream I walked, but came sudden to a strange stream. Its dark waters were bursting out most bright From a great mountain's heart into the light. They ran a short course under the sun, then back Into a pit they plunged, once more as black As at their birth; and I stood thinking there How white, had the day shone on them, they were, Heaving and coiling. So by the roar and hiss And by the mighty motion of the abyss I was bemused, that I forgot my friend And neither saw nor sought him till the end, When I awoke from waters unto men Saying: "I shall be here some day again."

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